Fredericks, Marshall. The Spirit of Detroit.\u00a0<\/em>1958. Detroit. \u2013 photograph by Matthew Johnson, 2018<\/em><\/span><\/p>\n In his latest post, Matthew Johnson takes us on his journey through Detroit \u2013 America\u2019s \u201cMotor City.\u201d While it gained prominence as the epicenter of the U.S. automobile industry at the turn of the 20th\u00a0<\/span>century, Detroit has since struggled to recover from a host of events that have led to its demographic and economic decline. However, Matt\u2019s recent visit shows us that there is much to look forward to in Detroit; and even after numerous lows and a bankruptcy declaration in 2013, the spirit of Detroit is driven to excel.<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This series usually focuses on the health innovation scenes in different regions of Canada. For this entry, let\u2019s assume that Canada has annexed Detroit from the U.S. As long as they insist on calling themselves \u201cHockeytown<\/a>\u201d, it\u2019s really only a matter of time, anyway.<\/p>\n Much has been written about the fall<\/a>\u2013 and rise<\/a>, and fall<\/a>–\u00a0 of Detroit, an unfortunate posterchild of withering U.S. \u201cRust Belt\u201d cities. Make no mistake, there is much heavy lifting to be done to counter the imposing macroeconomic trends confronting Detroit, and more still to ensure that the entire community recovers together<\/a>.<\/p>\n But Detroit is <\/em>on its way back, and health innovation has a significant role to play. Over the last year, I\u2019ve been honoured to get to know some of the hardworking people driving collaboration between health innovation players across Southeast Michigan \u2013 and Southwest Ontario \u2013 in support of the growth of the region\u2019s nascent biopharma and medtech sectors.<\/p>\n Any successful and sustainable health innovation cluster is anchored by world-class biomedical research and top-notch clinical services. Key research and clinical assets in Southeast Michigan include Wayne State University<\/a>, Henry Ford Health System<\/a>, and the University of Michigan<\/a>, which was awarded the third highest amount of NIH funding ($522 million) of all organizations worldwide in 2017.<\/p>\n Support for commercialization of the region\u2019s medical research is provided by the team at Fast Forward Medical Innovation<\/a>(FFMI), which manages entrepreneurship education programs and a number of early-stage commercialization funds at both the institutional<\/a> and state<\/a> levels.\u00a0 Though based at the University of Michigan, FFMI really is an invaluable resource for health innovators across the whole state of Michigan, and they\u2019ve been so welcoming to me whenever I\u2019ve visited.<\/p>\n Life science companies are very well-represented at the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium<\/a>, a premier venture fair focusing on university spin-out companies. The potential for the region\u2019s biomedical sector is on full display here as all manner of healthcare innovations \u2013 therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, software, and research tools \u2013 are pitched to angel, venture capital, and private equity investors from all over the U.S. It\u2019s also a forum for technology transfer professionals from across the Midwest to connect and share best practices, further building capacity for commercial translation of medical research.<\/p>\n I was recently in Detroit for the 2nd<\/sup>annual MedHealth Summit, a unique cross-border event bringing together innovators, health systems, insurers, research institutions, and investors from across Southeast Michigan and Southwest Ontario. MedHealth<\/a> is a grassroots effort to coalesce health innovation partners on both sides of the border, and to leverage their collective strengths to build a thriving international medtech cluster. Its early days to be sure, but the capacity and diversity of the MedHealth partners is undeniable, and the value of this initiative was clear at the Summit, which included a lively one-on-one matchmaking stream. I met a few companies that I\u2019d definitely like to learn more about.<\/p>\n Finally, a word about the people I\u2019ve met who are leading the charge for health innovation in the region. To a person, these are some of the most gracious and collaborative professionals I\u2019ve come across, and I\u2019ll be looking into ways for Bloom Burton to contribute to their mission of building a robust health innovation enterprise for Detroit and the surrounding areas. It\u2019s always nice when you can do business with people you enjoy spending time with, so I think I\u2019ll be making the drive to Detroit again soon.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/05\/HIN_Detroit.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n
![Hockeytown<\/a>\u201d, it\u2019s really only a matter of time, anyway.<\/p>\nMuch has been written about the fall<\/a>\u2013 and rise<\/a>, and fall<\/a>–\u00a0 of Detroit, an unfortunate posterchild of withering U.S. \u201cRust Belt\u201d cities. Make no mistake, there is much heavy lifting to be done to counter the imposing macroeconomic trends confronting Detroit, and more still to ensure that the entire community recovers together<\/a>.<\/p>\nBut Detroit is <\/em>on its way back, and health innovation has a significant role to play. Over the last year, I\u2019ve been honoured to get to know some of the hardworking people driving collaboration between health innovation players across Southeast Michigan \u2013 and Southwest Ontario \u2013 in support of the growth of the region\u2019s nascent biopharma and medtech sectors.<\/p>\nAny successful and sustainable health innovation cluster is anchored by world-class biomedical research and top-notch clinical services. Key research and clinical assets in Southeast Michigan include Wayne State University<\/a>, Henry Ford Health System<\/a>, and the University of Michigan<\/a>, which was awarded the third highest amount of NIH funding ($522 million) of all organizations worldwide in 2017.<\/p>\nSupport for commercialization of the region\u2019s medical research is provided by the team at Fast Forward Medical Innovation<\/a>(FFMI), which manages entrepreneurship education programs and a number of early-stage commercialization funds at both the institutional<\/a> and state<\/a> levels.\u00a0 Though based at the University of Michigan, FFMI really is an invaluable resource for health innovators across the whole state of Michigan, and they\u2019ve been so welcoming to me whenever I\u2019ve visited.<\/p>\nLife science companies are very well-represented at the Michigan Growth Capital Symposium<\/a>, a premier venture fair focusing on university spin-out companies. The potential for the region\u2019s biomedical sector is on full display here as all manner of healthcare innovations \u2013 therapeutics, devices, diagnostics, software, and research tools \u2013 are pitched to angel, venture capital, and private equity investors from all over the U.S. It\u2019s also a forum for technology transfer professionals from across the Midwest to connect and share best practices, further building capacity for commercial translation of medical research.<\/p>\nI was recently in Detroit for the 2nd<\/sup>annual MedHealth Summit, a unique cross-border event bringing together innovators, health systems, insurers, research institutions, and investors from across Southeast Michigan and Southwest Ontario. MedHealth<\/a> is a grassroots effort to coalesce health innovation partners on both sides of the border, and to leverage their collective strengths to build a thriving international medtech cluster. Its early days to be sure, but the capacity and diversity of the MedHealth partners is undeniable, and the value of this initiative was clear at the Summit, which included a lively one-on-one matchmaking stream. I met a few companies that I\u2019d definitely like to learn more about.<\/p>\nFinally, a word about the people I\u2019ve met who are leading the charge for health innovation in the region. To a person, these are some of the most gracious and collaborative professionals I\u2019ve come across, and I\u2019ll be looking into ways for Bloom Burton to contribute to their mission of building a robust health innovation enterprise for Detroit and the surrounding areas. It\u2019s always nice when you can do business with people you enjoy spending time with, so I think I\u2019ll be making the drive to Detroit again soon.<\/p>\nAs with all our posts, please see our full\u00a0legal disclaimer<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From Motor City to Health Innovation City? Detroit’s Unexpected Comeback By Matthew Johnson Fredericks, Marshall. The Spirit of Detroit.\u00a01958. Detroit. \u2013 photograph by Matthew Johnson, 2018 In his latest post, Matthew Johnson takes us on his journey through Detroit \u2013 America\u2019s \u201cMotor City.\u201d While it gained prominence as the epicenter of the U.S. automobile industry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":22571,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[122,137],"tags":[],"acf":{"type_of_background":"Image","image_background":false,"video_medium_background":"","video_mobile_background":"","has_dimmer":false,"dimmer_strength":"0.9","sub_heading":"","background_image":false,"paragraph_after_image":"","date":"","slideshow_module":false},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22570"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22570"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22570\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23618,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22570\/revisions\/23618"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22571"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22570"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22570"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloomburton.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22570"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}](\"https:\/\/commons.wikimedia.org\/wiki\/File:Hockeytown_logo.jpg\"){kind=link}